The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.246

v3.c20.246

THE repugnance of the populace to Fīrūz was due to the belief that his tribe, the Khaljīs, were Afghāns, a people who were regarded as barbarous. They were, in fact, a Turkish tribe but they had long been settled in the *Garmsīr*, or hot region, of Afghānistān, where they had probably acquired some Afghān manners and customs, and the Turkish nobles, most of whom must now have belonged to the second generation domiciled in India, refused to acknowledge them as Turks¹. It was owing to this hostility of the people that Fīrūz elected to be enthroned in Kaiqubād's unfinished villa at Kīlokhrī rather than at Delhi, and for some time after his elevation to the throne he dared not enter the streets of his capital. The more prominent citizens waited on him as a matter of course, and swore allegiance to him, and the people in general repaired to Kīlokhrī on the days appointed for public audiences, but they were impelled less by sentiments of loyalty than by curiosity to see how the barbarian would support his new dignity, and were compelled reluctantly to admit that he carried it well, but their disaffection did not at once abate, and Fīrūz completed the buildings and gardens left unfinished by Kaiqubād, named Kīlokhrī *Shahr-i-Nau*, or the New City, and ordered his courtiers to build themselves houses in the neighbourhood of his palace. The order was unpopular, but there was a large class whose livelihood depended on the court, and villas and shops rose round the palace of Kīlokhrī.